The theft of a simple sandwich board from outside the Save On Meats diner on West Hastings has opened a festering wound over concerns Vancouver’s low-income Downtown Eastside is being gentrified.

The sign went missing more than a week ago and later showed up on an “anarchist” website where activists said they stole it as part of “class warfare” against people they accuse of trying to benefit from the poor.

But it has helped to focus attention on an age-old issue: What happens when developers and businesses eventually turn their eyes towards low-value properties.

More than 20 years ago, the late Jim Green — activist, community worker and eventually city councillor — warned city council that the Downtown Eastside was the last refuge for the poor. Unplanned development, he said, would result in a growing homeless population. He fought for years to revitalize the Woodward’s building, and also helped convince the province to purchase many of the area’s single-room occupancy hotels that make up the vast majority of low-income housing.

Now, the community is in the midst of revitalization. The once-dead blocks in front of Woodward’s are filling with higher-end shops and spas. Buildings closer to Pigeon Park that were candidates for demolition are getting facelifts.

The revitalized Save On Meats store — a fixture of low-priced meats since 1957 — and owner Mark Brand have become the newest targets of anti-gentrification activists. Brand operates a half dozen businesses, including the Boneta Restaurant and Sea Monster Sushi, in which he offers training, employment and services to low-income residents.

But activists like Ivan Drury of the Carnegie Community Action Plan see Brand as doing “Dickensian charity work” that he thinks is best left to government.

“This Save-On Meats scheme is socially irresponsible because it is posing an alternative to taxing corporations and the rich … to provide social programs,” Drury said.

Brand isn’t the only target of the self-styled “Anti-Gentrification Front”, which appears to be a variant of other protest groups such as the Anti-Poverty Committee and the Black Watch.

Drury said he doesn’t know who is behind AGF, but said he thinks the activists are engaged in a noble cause.

AGF has claimed responsibility for smashing the windows of a Commercial Drive pizzeria three times. Activists also picket the upscale Pidgin Restaurant a block from Save-On.

“The thing I find disheartening is the kind of moral alarm and outrage that inevitably springs up when a window is smashed. But no human being is hurt by a window being smashed. I think these government policies that perpetuate poverty and make people homeless are far more violent than the smashing of a window,” Drury said.

Brand calls such activism misguided.

“Any area that is in flux and has these serious long-term problems, people are angry. To be clear, I am angry about those issues, too,” he said. “But we do what we can do and I know what my limits are. We feed people, we train people, we employ people. And we are always ready for a conversation.”

Brand said activists are wasting their time. “Are you going to steal signs or do you want to come and help us feed some people or educate some people or work with the Carnegie Centre.”

Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s former planning director, says it’s inevitable that the Downtown Eastside will change. “Any city that has any kind of economic activity going on is facing these issues. … The only cities not facing this are cities that have stagnated,” he said. “No one, I think, wants the community to stay boarded up.”

Toderian said Brand is doing more to help the Downtown Eastside than many businesses.

“I think Mark Brand has done a very good job of trying to make sure that his businesses support and reflect the low-income community but also a growing middle class in the neighbourhood, which is about diversity and change and all the things the city has called for,” Toderian said. “Mark Brand is the last person I would identify as being a gentrification problem. ”

Deputy mayor Geoff Meggs said there are valid concerns about the speed of changes in the neighbourhood. That’s why the city is in the middle of a neighbourhood planning review process.

“At the same time some of their (activists’) responses are unrealistic and are headed in the wrong direction,” Meggs said. “I don’t think it is possible ... to say that nothing will happen in the Downtown Eastside until there is a massive investment in social housing.”

A recent report to council shows that in the past 20 years the number of social housing units has gone up from 11,371 to 12,126. And the vast majority are now owned or operated by non-profit groups and the provincial government. The province has committed to building 1,500 more social housing units by 2014. So far it has 672 in various stages of construction. B.C. is also building 2,150 supportive housing units by 2014, of which it has 1,810 under various stages of construction.

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